Donald Trump announces a residential project to go along with his Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes in this 2005 file photo. (Brad Graverson/Daily Breeze/SCNG)

Employees at the restaurant at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes have claimed that young, attractive employees were scheduled to work when Donald Trump came to visit. File photo. (Chuck Bennett/Daily Breeze/SCNG)

Anne Donohue of San Pedro, a young hostess at Trump National Golf Club during her college years, said much of the angst stemmed from Trump’s insistence that only young, attractive women be working in the restaurant at the Rancho Palos Verdes club.

“The manager just wanted to make sure we put on a really good face,” Donohue said Thursday. “The most attractive girls, in their early 20s or younger, were scheduled — and the people who weren’t going to be a problem. You were to look good, not bother him and smile.”

Those who were older, she said in a telephone interview, simply were not scheduled to work when Trump, their celebrity boss with a well-known penchant for beautiful young women, was coming to town.

Testimony culled from court documents this week claims Trump insisted that only trim, young and attractive women be allowed to work in the restaurant — and that he wanted people fired who didn’t measure up when it came to youth and good looks.

The documents stem from a lawsuit filed over the lack of meal and rest breaks provided for employees at the venue. The bulk of the lawsuit was settled in 2013 when the golf course, while not admitting any wrongdoing, agreed to pay $475,000 to employees.

An attorney for the Trump Organization called the allegations “meritless.”

But fallout from some of the employee testimony provided in court documents has pushed the complaints to the forefront of what has become a very tight presidential race.

‘You’re fired’

Hayley Strozier, a co-worker and friend of Donohue’s who was director of catering until she left Trump National in 2008, said in a declaration that she was told to fire an employee because of her weight.

The employee, whose name is redacted from court documents, was “significantly overweight,” Strozier said.

In 2003, Strozier was told by the then-vice president of the company, Vincent Stellio, to fire the employee because “Mr. Trump doesn’t like fat people,” she said in her statement.

Once she refused to fire her fellow employee, Stellio told her, “You’ll probably get in trouble for this.”

Strozier told him she didn’t care.

About a year later, club manager Mike van der Goes approached Strozier and told her it “would be in (Strozier’s) best interest to fire” the same employee.

“You can fire us both if that’s what it takes,” Strozier said she told him, according to the court documents.

A week later, van der Goes came back to Strozier and told her he had a plan to hide the employee in question whenever Trump was at the club. “I told Mr. (van) der Goes that I was disappointed in him as a man and as a father,” she said in her statement.

That type of behavior from managers wasn’t surprising, Strozier said in her declaration. On multiple occasions, she saw Trump tell managers that hostesses weren’t pretty enough, and should be replaced with more attractive employees.

Strozier could not be reached for comment by the Southern California News Group.

Off the schedule

Eventually, Trump didn’t have to make those comments any longer because managers caught on to what he wanted and scheduled more attractive employees to work while Trump was on site.

“Usually the older girls were not scheduled and some would be upset about it,” said Donohue, who now works for a Pasadena catering firm and also is an actress. “They wanted to see him and be there.”

Van der Goes, Donohue said, pushed back when asked to fire people for what he considered unjust cause.

Allegations ‘meritless’

The Trump organization strongly denied the charges.

“The allegations in the lawsuit were meritless. We do not engage in discrimination of any kind,” Jill Martin, vice president and assistant general counsel for the Trump Organization, said in a written statement. “The statements made by a group of former disgruntled employees are far from an accurate portrayal of what it is like to work at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles.”

The statement went on to say that “the only appearance Mr. Trump cares about is that of the facility and the grounds.”

The employees, the statement said, had “an ax to grind.”

While Donohue, 35, was usually among those scheduled to work when Trump was coming by, she said she wasn’t among the favored tier of servers or hostesses “with model good looks” that Trump preferred.

Gail Doner was a server at Trump National after working for decades in the hospitality industry. As one of the older servers on staff, Doner said, managers began scheduling her for fewer and fewer shifts, and often for the latest possible shift. She would arrive at work, only to be told that there were enough servers for the night and sent home, she said in a court declaration.

“Eventually, Trump stopped scheduling me for any shifts — thereby effectively firing me. I chose not to fight to get my job back because by that point I was fed up with the toxic environment and the way that I was treated,” she said in a court declaration.

Even while she was still scheduled to work, Doner said, she saw firsthand the impact of managers’ tendencies to schedule the most attractive hostesses, even if they didn’t have the experience to handle a busy, high-end restaurant.

“As a server, I was often frustrated with these younger hostesses because they could not understand how to seat guests so that the work would be staggered among servers,” she said in her declaration.

Donohue’s belief was that “If you weren’t a knock-out, you were basically invisible,” but she added that Trump never commented on her looks nor did she hear him comment directly on others’ appearances.

‘Get some good-looking hostesses’

But, in court documents, other past employees relayed more specific interactions during their time at Trump National.

Sue Kwiatkowski began working at the club in 2001, while it was still Ocean Trails Golf Club. Trump bought the club in 2005 and she stayed on through 2009.

Kwiatkowski eventually was promoted to senior restaurant manager. During her tenure with the club, according to the documents, Trump told her in no uncertain terms the type of workers he expected to be on staff.

“I know this because one time (Trump) took me aside and said, ‘I want you to get some good-looking hostesses in here. People like to see good-looking people when they come in,’ ” she said in her declaration.

After that and other comments, Kwiatkowski and other managers made efforts to schedule the most attractive hostesses for days when Trump was going to be in the restaurant.

Kwiatkowski could only recall two women older than 40 who worked while Trump was on site, she said in the declaration.

“He wanted models, someone who looked like they just stepped off the runway,” Donohue said. “If you weren’t (like that), you could just go and stay in the back.”

Trump, who is 6-foot-2, was an imposing presence, Donohue said, adding that she still remembers her own nervousness the first time she took his breakfast order.

“He’s very loud — you could hear him anywhere in the clubhouse — and I was kind of timid,” she said. “He told me ‘I’ll have two eggs over.’ I ran back to the kitchen and they said, ‘Two eggs over what? You’ve got to go back out there.’ I thought, ‘Oh, jeez.’ ”

Different place under Trump

Donohue went to work for Ocean Trails in 2001 as soon as she got out of high school. After spending time in Ireland and at college, she returned in 2005, after Trump had taken over, to find it a very different place.

“He covered everything in gold and put his name on everything,” she said.

Among the changes, Pellegrino sparkling water was swapped out for “Trump” water.

When he came by to visit — as he did often during the summer when “The Apprentice” reality TV show was taped in Los Angeles — he always insisted on a tour, Donohue said. She recalled Trump as being something of a “germophobe” who didn’t like to shake hands and insisted on drinking Diet Coke out of the bottle that he could open himself.

“Everyone was on pins and needles and we were told to always call him Mr. Trump,” she said. “There was just a lot of tension.”

Cynthia Washicko started covering the Palos Verdes Peninsula for the Daily Breeze in 2016. Before joining the Breeze she covered business and local news for papers on the Oregon and Washington coasts. She’s an Orange County native and Cal State Fullerton alum who enjoys traveling and has a particular knack for killing house plants. Restaurant recommendations and story tips are perpetually welcome.

Donna Littlejohn has covered the Harbor Area as a reporter since 1981. Along with development, politics, coyotes, battleships and crime, she writes features that have spotlighted an array of topics, from an alligator on the loose in a city park to the modern-day cowboys who own the trails on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. She loves border collies and Aussie dogs, cats, early California Craftsman architecture and most surviving old stuff. She imagines the 1970s redevelopment sweep that leveled so much of San Pedro's historic waterfront district as very sad.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.